feeling listless

Music Sometimes you can hear something for for your entire life and then realise that what you thought you knew was only a fragment of the true story. When I heard the song 'Wimoweh' on a compliation from the folk group The Spinners at the age of ten I thought it was their own composition. So when I heard the Tight Fit song 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' I thought they had ripped of Davis, Hall, Grove and Jones. Later I heard Pete Seger sing it and decided that The Spinners had covered his version. And it stayed as one of those songs I knew inside out; the last time I head it was the fer bars which appeared when Marcel the Monkey jived on 'Friends'. So when I noticed there was a documentary about the origins of the song on BBC4 the other night, I thought it would be interesting to see who originally recorded it.

It was a composition originally devised by Solomon Linda, a Zulu migrant who was enticed into going to New York with his group The Evening Birds to record their music for the producer, Griffiths Motsieloa, who released it on the then standard 78s. It sold a hundred thousand copies. For which Linda recieved lunch money, having signed the most simplistic contract available, having been told that black people couldn't earn proper money, by his record label. By scrawling his name on that little slip of paper he signed the rights away imperpetuity. So a year after 'The Tokens' recorded their version in 1961, the one which sold six million copies and imortalised the tune for the modern audience, Linda died in poverty. His family couldn't even afford a gravestone.

In fact the most arm chewingly embarassing moment in the programme was an interview from a cable tv station. When The Tokens recorded Wimoweh their record company all but forced them to use the top vocal -- which is where 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' chimes in. Their producer, George Weiss wrote those lyrics based upon Linda's original language. So there was Weiss, in this interview claiming to the presenter that he had written the whole thing himself including the Wimoweh bit. Linda's name didn't come up once. This old rich man treading on the grave of the real talent.

Afrkaan's writer Rian Malan, noticing the injustice decided that he would take up the fight on behalf of Linda's remaining four daughters. Part of his campaign was an article in Rolling Stone magazine which he hoped would open up the debate (the documentary was a partial adaptation of the piece). It's quite long but worth printing out and reading on your way to work. He has also compiled a guide list of other cover versions of the song. It's staggering how something can balloon, but the origin author lacks the credit.